Review of Ebo Whyte’s “Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only”

He walked confidently and steadily to the stage to grab the microphone, and the first thing he said was, “Did you enjoy it [the play]?” Ebo Whyte asked the patrons when he interacted with them after the show. The patrons screamed “Yesss”, a confirmation that, they enjoyed his latest play titled: Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only.

Many Ghanaians achieve legendary status through their works but we find it difficult to refer to them as such. It is as if Ghanaians do not know what level one must reach before he or she is granted legendary status. I can confidently say today that playwright and director Ebo Whyte has achieved a legendary status.

If you are a fan of Ebo Whyte’s plays, then pardon me, I was a first timer at last Thursday’s show. I have had the chance over the years to see almost all the plays but in a way I found excuses not to attend, though not deliberately. Sometimes, I found myself locked up somewhere undertaking important business.

I didn’t know what I had been missing all these years that I didn’t make it to the shows. It is even shameful that I had to discover that there were some things one was not allowed to do in the theatre. Midway through the play when I started taking pictures, a young man appeared and said to me, “Sir, no photographs allowed.”

I nearly missed the show last Thursday even. The Electricity Company visited my area with their ‘dumsor’ activities. With my phone almost on the verge of going off as a result of a drained battery, a call was placed to my phone from a friend to ask if I was going to attend Ebo Whyte’s latest play.

I had no plans of attending the show but because of the power outage, I had no choice but to accept for the first time to be present at the show, rather than stay at home with no lights to do anything.

Time

A lot has been written and said about plays by Roverman that they do not start late. As a first timer and based on hearsay I was expecting the show to commence on time, I mean the advertised time, even though secretly I was hoping that the show would start a little later than expected so I can call the bluff of friends who had made so much noise about Ebo Whyte and his time consciousness. But, no it wasn’t meant to be.

According to the invite that took me there, the play was to start at 6:30pm. I was seated comfortably as live band music welcomed patrons. At 6:10pm, the band stopped playing to make way for the show. Then to my shame, at exactly 6:30pm, the curtain opened and then there was no turning back.

Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only is an excellent play. The actors were just phenomenal and made everything look so real. Ebo Whyte is a professional and I’m privileged to make a few observations about his play.

Story

It has been conceived that, on the night after you and your partner have said your “I do’s” to each other, sex was the next thing to follow. When it comes to that there is actually nothing more or less to expect. Rather sadly, sexual intercourse these days has become very open because most would-be couples would have already explored each other’s body before tying the nuptial knot. But not for Mimi, who has saved her virginity to offer it to the man of her dreams, who has also been forced to live a chaste life for a decade.

So the expectation of such a couple, especially the woman is rather on the high side and that sets the atmosphere for Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only, a story strictly for adults.

Mimi, the lead female actor had it all planned; this was the night of her dreams. Getting married to Maestro, the most successful footballer in Africa is just what she had been praying for and her expectations were high.

But her world is about to be shattered as she faces the hard reality that everything she had dreamt of was for money and fame. Now unless you watch the play, whatever you are imagining is only an illusion.

Adults Only

On the contrary, I disagree with the tagline “Adults Only”, unless, of course, it was a ploy to get people to see the play, then I can let it go. However, Ebo Whyte doesn’t appear like someone who will waste his time just to play around sex for attention. So why was ‘Adults Only’ attached to the title as a warning? Only one thing comes to mind, whenever “Adults Only” tag is attached to something. When a play is titled “Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only”, it is assumed that people will read meaning into it and so expect adult related content. I’m not a pervert, and I will not be hypocritical about it, but I expected the play to go that way and call a penis and vagina by their names and not manhood and womanhood. Perhaps I’m writing as a first time patron but I think the play did not deserve the “Adults Only” tag. That aside, I found the play very educative. It is a play that everyone must see because of its instructive nature.

Maestro’s language

There is an interesting thing about footballers in Ghana. Whenever they are being interviewed, funnily, almost all of them do not complete a sentence or go without their usual “you know, you know”. They find a way to either dodge a question or answer in a ‘buga buga’ manner or speak as if they are being chased. Ghanaians are aware that, Black Stars players do not speak impeccable English. In Make Me A Woman Tonight; Adults Only, the male lead character, Maestro who was portrayed as a player of the Black Stars team spoke impeccable English. I don’t buy that. But these notwithstanding, I think it is a great play … writing as a first timer.